Category Archives: Black Metal

PROFANATICA (USA/Ny): “…Tormenting Holy Flesh…” split Cd with MASACRE (Col) 1992 Osmose

Leave a reply

Profanatica was one of my favourite Black Metal bands when it was becoming a solid enstabilished genre per se, with its aesthetics and stuff, and the fact they came from a district of New York just made the thing for me all the better. I feel really annoyed by Scandinavian Black Metal, however you call it. This band originally formed out of a very early version of Incantation when both Ledney and McEntee left Revenant (if you want to hear the other bands which came before this: Contrivisti and Toten, check out the excellent – as usual – retrospective on Nuclear War Now!) or as Ledney put it, when John left the band and took the name with himself. Whatever the case, it seems their friendship must have been deteriorating afterwards becouse McEntee is on the first line in the thankslist of this “…Tormenting Holy Flesh…” split album. Profanatica is quite atypical for the modern interpretation of the Black Metal band, for several reasons. The riffs of their songs were not just constrant buzzing tremolos a la Immortal & Co. but you can call them riffs old school Death/Black with Doom laden bridges and powerful twists, there is even one small touch of the early Incantation here, when I really like the guitars, the impossibly bad recording and shrieking vocals just don’t annoy me so much, on the contrary, I am pleased by the total garage sound, it really reeks evil like the worse south American recording and the malignity just results heightened. Ledney here handles both drums and vocals (like Nocturnus or Autopsy) and I believe he does a good job at both things. His screams are a blasphemous agony, not your ridicolous typical popeye Scandinavian-style shout, I really picked this out becouse some resemblances to Messiah which I reviewed yesterday might not be totally out of place, when we talk about the slower grinding sections. Track 1 is the only new song here, as both “Final Hour of Christ” and “Weeping in Heaven” previously appeared in other works, and the 8 minute “I Arose” is just a fucking evocative instrumental masterpiece. No really this stuff is so neat I am not afraid to say I like it more than 99% of today’s Black Metal (there are exceptions, but you get my point), this is what I mean for Black Metal, not paper penguins. I don’t care much for the panda corpsepaint but seens it’s a must have for any so called satanic band (bah). Profanatica was really, really direct and sick in their blasphemy. I have seen a video of these guys playing naked and smeared with blood on stage, masturbating on the bible, smashing a virgin mary statue stained with blood on stage, spitting urine at the crowd, they were really, really nasty and disgusting, trying to break all of jesus christ’s rules not just by writing lyrics in their flats but also by acting disgusting and against the laws of nature (a bit like G.G. Allin). I haven’t heard anything since their reunion (except for the collection picLp but that’s all old stuff) so I can’t tell if things changed for the best or stayed so primeval, you should check Hell’s Headbangers website often to stay informed. I have compared both vinyl and Cd versions of this split and I haven’t found any differences. There was a flyer insert withing the Lp cover however where Osmose was sponsoring the “The Raping of Virgin Mary” unreleased album, ah. I don’t know if there was a mistake on the flyer but what was to become the cover of this split was instead placed as the cover for that never released album. Blasphemous and totally crude the way this is meant to be, once again! Fuck polished sound!

SERAPHIM SLAUGHTER (USA-Nj): “Scum Terror” Lp Cd 2007 AIDS Needle

Leave a reply

I had to think about it several times, and I finally came to the conclusion that I don’t like this debut album by Seraphim Slaughter. Sure, it is rough and crusty. Sure it has equal shares of Abscess-like Punk and Black Metal. But it’s just the black metal part that doesn’t manage to convince me at all. It’s an hybrid nested somewhere between The Germs and any Norwegian Black Metal band from the 90’s (pick one, anyone – they’re too hard to identify ah ah!).

If there was more South American vulgarity maybe… maybe… but like this it’s a bit weak other than filthy. The general idea is nice: a band from the grime of New Jersey experimenting lessons in alchemy with vials of the most ugly kinds of music. The cover art is also superb, totally “old school ’80’s thrash metal demo” style, mixing suicide, dead babies, a girl stabbed to death and AIDS encrusted syringes – it looks so vintage it’s a real pity I cannot make myself enjoy it. But really it’s not a matter of filth, it’s the guitarwork that it’s definitely too easy in a bad way, much like a college band if you know what I mean, I must have listened to all the riffs contained here when I was still a teenager. Just like happened with Watain, the dress is not at the same level as the content. Some thrash, some punk, some easy listening black metal… there is really HUGE space for improvement. As it is, I won’t personally buy it for 20 cents.

VV.AA. (n/a): “Fudgeworthy Records Compilation” compilation Cd 2001 Fudgeworthy

6 Replies

This compilation might be seven years old, but filthiness is always actual. Fudgeworthy record is THE label to go to find raw, noisy, ugly forms of music ranging from punk to black metal of the most horrible kinds. This compilation is a collection of recordings that only appeared on vinyl, and the nicest thing is that, since the master tapes were lost or nowhere to be found, Charlie decided to transfer the songs directly from the vinyl! And the result is the farthest you can find from “professional” or “tolerable”, ah ah, every part of the sound is completely fucked up, including constant crackling, abrupt volume changes etc. I didn’t check but i am pretty sure everything is strictly “mono”! There is so much stuff here a precise review would be impossible to do, but consider you get to warm up with the gentleman G.G. Allin with his unfathomable political correctness made punk rock, one riff basic punkish shits Slough (best logo ever, look after their 7″) and Out Cold. Following the noisy hard/core crust from Jesus Chrust, Undinism, Rupture shoulder to shoulder with a tidal wave of total noise-grind annihilations with Minch, The Meat Shits, Captain Three Legs, Anal Cunt, Final Exit (their tracks are really, really incomprehensible ahah, COOL!), the ultra brutal Twisted Truth and and Brazilian legends Rot (one of my personal faves). Some metal stuff is also included, but definitely not pretty either. I am not a lover of this band but Groinchurn surely belong to the more “metallic” side of the compilation despite a bunch of accelerations – but the best goes with Impiety, Pest and Gonkulator… real catechists! You get a bunch of songs per band, and every one of these are crammed in a single track, ah ah, there are not even sing titles!! Personally my favorite here is Black Mass of Absu, something you could definitely slash your wrists at, total noisy doom/ambient shit like you never heard before. Killer.

The layout of this compilation is total shit, but that you could already tell from the logo, made up of turds and flies. Honestly even if I adore this crappy sounding music for maniacs, I would have liked a better booklet, maybe woth something more that just contact addresses. Small record covers and a liner note or two per record would have been the least. Anyway this is not stuff for high-class collectors. This record is ugliness incarnate and so is the packaging, and I go with it finely.

GOSPEL OF THE HORNS (Aus): “Realm of the Damned” Lp Cd 2007 Invictus

Leave a reply

I am not sure why sometimes my tastes just change from one year to the other. I used to consider Gospel of the Horns a good band, with a retro thrash touch which was simple but honest. The songs on this album however have managed to bore me heavily even before reaching the 20th minute. The sound is deliciously “Celtic Frosted” and just none of the guitar riffs here is a let downer. Yet something is definitely missing, and that’s the total lack of bursting rage… it’s like a perennial intro that never ends, a kind of constant mid tempo that erode me. Surely you can headbang at this stuff, thanks to choruses and epic riffing and all the classic Asutralian stuff. Yet the total lack of bestiality is heavy here.

Once upon a time I used to pass through the whole discography of a band before hearing a new album, and I admit I didn’t do it this time, but I have the strong impression that the previous releases were a bit rawer and heavier than this one. Sometimes this “Realm..” just sounds like plain Metal without the heaviness, and that’s not something I dig much in a band. Thrashing riffs abound, but none of these have the same intensity of the real ones from the good old eighties. If you want good Thrash Metal get “Power and Pain” by Whiplash, not a band from 2008. And too bad the vocals are just plain bad. Raspy but quite weak.
Best thing on the whole release must be the booklet: the cover art is inspiring and the lyrics are just as powerful. Excellent work has been made by the studio who worked on the layout. This looks damn professional. Not my kind of Metal, even if not disastrous. Sufficient to stir some attention here and there if you ask me. Definitely didn’t deserve an Lp version, or such popularity – though.

WARPATH (fin): “Thorns Pest Blood” split Cd with VUOHIVASARA (fin) 2007 Iron, Blood & Death

Leave a reply

Almost the other side of Finland stands the town of Mikkeli, where this band comes from. There are quite a few differences from Vuohivasara, as their music is much more influences by Celtic Frost, Hellhammer, and definitely slower and slightly more minimalistic tempos. I personally like this kind of retro Black Metal even less than the one proposed by the other band. Mid tempo rock’n’roll riffs just make my knees drop water. I have appreciated the crispy, crackling, filtered sound of the vocals and the sick sound of the recording, yet this band just leaves me quite indifferent. Most of this record is slow ballads instead of straight in your face hate for god. Time to shrug away some clichés if you ask me.

VUOHIVASARA (fin): “Thorns Pest Blood” split Cd with WARPATH (fin) 2007 Iron, Blood & Death

Leave a reply

Two releases by this band in a row, wow. Whew. Ouch. This material comes a bit before the afore-reviewed full-length, and you can clearly hear it – I am afraid to tell. Songs here are even simpler and vocals still less developed, almost in a semi-amateurish way. I kinda appreciate the spirit of our dear Goat Hammers in a very insane way, but honestly speaking I still believe this is the kind of records that pass across like a summer rain. Their kind of Black Metal is still decent, more in the Swedish than in the Norwegian tradition; still much better than 90% of second wave Black Metal or other “cult” bands from France, but yet the majesty, obscurity and satanic might of Death… (opps) Black Metal is lacking somewhat. Not minimalist, decorously played, but still a bit unripe. Even if the booklet is thin (just one leaf), the cover art is spectacular. Eerie, grim and grotesque, this art director Arthur Axe is doing good things.

VUOHIVASARA (fin): “The Sigil” Lp Cd 2007 Iron, Blood & Death

Leave a reply

I am surely getting annoying but I have to strengthen my assertion that is not the kind of black metal that i “feel” being real Black. Vuohivasara means Goathammer in Finnish, which is a good name for a Black Metal band even if Finnish always sound a bit too sweet for this music to my ears. And well, of corpse they’re from Finland too, fool.

Vuohivasara plays traditional post ’90 Black Metal, something that has become surprisingly rare today with this recent Blasphemy revival (damn, I would have never thought to say these words with contempt one day just ten years ago). Fast, cold, eerily melodic but encrusted with a hammering combination of Kill/Watain touches which gives the music extra variation compared to that shit that was so popular in Norway last decade. I personally spite this kind of vocals, definitely too high pitched to sound demonic, but musically this is not bad stuff: the songs have a definite form and the guitarwork is decent, with solid drumming for this kind of music. Other that that there is not much to say, you got some dissonance and remote choruses in the background at times too, even if it’s nothing as orchestral or sophisticated as Deathspell Omega. Good production too, raw but definitely clean, honestly I am not caring much when we talk Black Metal about it anyway.

The booklet is indeed well cured, with interesting lyrics about sacrifice and incantations of death which are always a pleasure to read. Simple layout but at least something looking professional from this good Mexican label called Iron Blood & Death. I suggest you to check out their releases becouse apart from this one which I deem too average, it also has some interesting things in the roster.